Back To Blighty

It felt like I was entering a huge advertisement as I walked into the Great UK Machine at Heathrow, still high on being away from this dirty, fierce and degraded home of mine. HSBC's red letter logo is plastered everywhere - they bought the space leading into the passport control and baggage reclaim in order to make Blade Runner a sooner reality. On the train which runs from Terminal 4, which is a couple of miles from the rest of the airport, or at least it feels like that, there are screens showing time-lapse film of various urban centres around the world. Reassuring. They are all still there then. We got on, to be told to get off again to allow a security check. Wearily we picked up bags and waited. I felt a lot more secure now. As I got off, the screens began to play me news, about a bomb going off. But I don't want to hear the news right now, I found myself saying alound, I only just started to feel secure after the CHECK..., and I watched a young asian girl to my left smirk with either embarassment or mild scorn or both at my naivety. Clearly I am now a bumpkin in my own city.

One of the joys of spending time in a world which doesn't run in your own language is to have all conversations removed - public, private, eavesdropped, broadcast, subtle, or rammed down your throat, all speech and most text has been for two weeks in Norwegian, which, with a few exceptions, I couldn't follow. Thus I have remained in a bubble of non-comprehending appreciation, except that the kind and educated people that surrounded me all spoke perfect English. I was reduced to saying the odd "Tak" mostly as a token gesture of internationalist goodwill and to acknowledge that they do have their own perfectly serviceable tongue.

Personally, I like Norwegian and would like to learn enough to have a decent conversation, make a joke, or at least, purchase my mandolin plus hard case with nae bother. Some of the words are like or exactly the same as English - send, for example - or Scottish - barn / bairn = child. Norwegian of course has its own particular rhythmic inflection, which M once described as Oompa Loompa, and which the infamous Chalkie White termed Hurdy Gurdy Wordies to describe and illustrate the predominant rhythms of Nordic speech - or at least, the cadences which are not shared with English and which to our ears stand out.

What did I like this time around? Everything is a lot more laid back; people seem to have a lot more time for each other. There's a great deal of humour and warmth. Technically, everything actually works; the public transport system works on a presumed honesty system. I never once saw anyone check for tickets but everyone seemed to have one. Yes alcohol is expensive, but the food is fresh - even supermarket food is far better than in the UK. Norwegian music is dynamic, inventive, and often exquisitely performed, and fine art flourishes, due to a large amount of native talent and good funding.

What did I find myself missing, found in a shop in Grønland, siezed upon and carried with us for the remainder of our time? Tea - Orange Pekoe of course! There's only so many glasses of luke-warm Lipton's Earl Grey you can bear.